City Press || 12 September 2010 31

Voices

The Color Purple cata­pulted Alice Walkerfrom obscurity tointernational acclaimand unrelenting scru­

tiny. Prior to the publication of thenovel in1982,whichwentontowinthe Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in1983 and which was adapted to afilm by Steven Spielberg, Walkerwas a reclusive poet, writer andcivil rights activist.

Much has happened to Walkersince The Color Purple.

A prolific writer who excels in amyriad genres – poetry, essays,short stories and novels – Walkeris also a teacher, an editor, a pub­lisher and an activist.

The Color Purple made Walkerthe first African­American to winthe Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

But it also unleashed a firestormof criticism from black Americanmen outraged by Walker’s unsym­pathetic portrayal of the malecharacters in the novel.

More hullabaloo followedWalker’s 1993 collaboration with

filmmaker Pratibha Parmar on thedocumentary Warrior Marks,about female genital mutilation inAfrica.

Walker produced the film andher profile raised global awarenessof the issue.

But the film got a roasting fromAfrican feminists as a “colonialistnarrative that depicted Africanwomen as victims of their ownculture”whileonecritic lambastedWalker for being on a “post­colon­ial civilising mission”.

A 2007 memoir penned by herdaughter, Rebecca, entitled Black,White and Jewish: Autobiographyof a Shifting Self, was described bythe New York Times as a chronicleof her “efforts to cope with beinghot­potatoed from city to city inthe wake of her parents’ divorceand what she perceived to be hermother’s ambivalence about herexistence”.

The book resulted in theestrangement of mother anddaughter.

Walker has seen her fair share ofcontroversy,butnotenoughtodimthecriticalacclaimgarneredbyhernumerousnovels,essays,memoirsand poetry collections.

She’s harnessed prodigiouscreativity to penetrating politicalcommentary on a range of issues

including spirituality, freedom,civil rights, free expression, loveand preserving Earth.

For weeks prior to her visit,socialmediaplatformslikeTwitterand Facebook vibrated withecstatic paroxysms posted by oldand young black women literati forwhom Walker’s visit was a dreamdelivered.

Walker’s Gauteng­based aco­lytes had their dreams fulfilled atAneveningwithAliceWalkerattheState Theatre in Pretoria onTuesday.

Hosted by the Steve Biko Foun­dation, thearts andculture depart­ment and the American embassy,it featured Walker, SimphiweDana, Sibongile Khumalo, Ladiesin Jazz and poet Natalia Molebatsi,whowasthemasterofceremonies.

Walker,whoembracespaganismand a love of the earth, and whocontracted Lyme disease fromlying on the ground, was not onlygame, but completely comfortablewith the spiritual rituals conduct­ed by a group of sangomas.

Barefooted, she sat cross­leggedon the floor as impepho was burntand the spiritual healers wentabout their business.

“Can there be any doubt that Iam home?” asked Walker as shetook her place at the podium, still

barefoot and now brandishing theceremonial induku gifted to her bythe sangomas.

Her audience, comprising aconsiderable chunk of localfeminists, womanists, writers,poets and other women of letters,were not immune to the phallicsymbolism of the traditional knob­kierie and tittered in appreciationas she held it aloft.

Walker recited poetry mixedwith commentary about a range ofissues: the danger of forgettingone’s past, America’s lust for war,the ascent of Evo Morales andHugoChavezinLatinAmerica,herlove of Fidel Castro, the DalaiLama and Aung San Suu Kyi.

Shealsounleashedlyricalbroad­sides no doubt intended for localears, speaking about conspicuousconsumers who “buy cars, cars,cars, for every day of the week”.

Soft­spoken and incisive, Walk­er balanced her razor­sharp analy­sis with humorous asides.

Dana and Khumalo held theirown against the literary superstar,who gamely joined them on stagefor a boogy during the finale.

The smell of impepho hung inthe air throughout as if to give anancestral nod of approval to anunequivocal sistah’s love fest ofliterature and song.

A sistah’s love festA spirited evening of song and poetry with Alice Walker

‘She’s harnessed

prodigious

creativity to

penetrating

political

commentary

on a range

of issues

A sangoma conducts a home­welcoming ceremony for American activist and writerAlice Walker at the State Theatre in Pretoria || PHOTO: VICTOR DLAMINI

GailSmith

1983 The year in which Alice Walkerbecame the first African­Americanto win Pulitzer Prize for fiction forher novel The Color Purple